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30 Days, 30 Ways: Day 4

30 Days, 30 Ways: Day 4

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Today’s 30 Days task relates to the weather. Engage any British person in conversation for more than a couple of minutes and we’ll find a way of talking about it, so I think this one will be a walk in the park (or more likley…rain!)

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I’m not sure if there is a particular name for it, but I think the transition between summer and autumn is my favourite time of year. It’s still warm enough not to wear a jacket, but it’s cool enough to get away with drinking red wine!

So, on with today’s task

1 Pt:   Identify your closest National Weather Service office and follow them on Social Media

2 Pts:   Tell us the difference between an “Advisory”, “Watch” and “Warning”

I already follow the Met Office on Twitter and have their iPhone app. Hopefully that means the first point is in the bag!

In the UK the terms associated with weather events are slightly different. We use rather more self explanatory terms

  • Be Aware
  • Be Prepared
  • Take Action

However, our terminology for describing flood risk, which is the responsibility of the Environment Agency (who I also follow on social media!), more closely aligns with American terms, so I thought I’d post about them too! In the event of flooding being forecast, the following escalation levels are used:

  • Flood Alert – meaning flooding is possible, be prepared
  • Flood Warning – which means flooding is expected, take action
  • Severe Flood Warning – which essentially means flooding has occurred and there is a risk to life

I am inclined to think that our weather warnings are more intuitive as they provide an immediate and clear instruction, whereas the flood warnings (and American weather warnings) rely on people already understanding the terms. That said, all of these terms are better than using the more vague numbered, lettered or coloured levels without corresponding description.

Heatwave Warning Level 3 – what does that mean? Level 3 of how many? Which way does the scale slide? What do you expect me to do?!

 

30 Days, 30 Ways: Day 3

30 Days, 30 Ways: Day 3

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Today’s challenge focuses on ensuring that children are prepared for emergencies. As children and young people can be disproportionately affected by disasters this is certainly a worthwhile activity.

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The points on offer today are as follows:

1 Pt:    Sadly there are plenty of children out there that are not as fortunate and may need a little help from their community. Today we want you to think about being part of that community.  Please locate and share where donation drop off points are in your community.  We would also like to encourage you to donate school supplies for a child to an area school.

2 Pts: Take today’s task a step further and create an emergency “Kit for the Kid” in your life.

It seems the first two days of the challenge lulled me into a false sense of security, because today’s task is considerably harder!

I have to confess that I’m not sure I fully understand the first task. There isn’t a High Street in the UK that doesn’t have at least one charity shop – that’s where I’ve donated things in the past. However, I’m not aware of any facilities being identified for coordinated donation of items.

The second part of the task revolves around Grab Bags (of useful emergency items). The message for the public to have a Grab Bag is not as strongly articulated in the UK as it is internationally. Pregnant friends and those who exercise regularly tend to have ‘grab bags’ tailored to their needs. However I’m definitely in the minority by having a generic emergency Grab Bag, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen an initiative specifically directed at children having a Grab Bottle.

One aspect about Grab Bags that I dislike is the dreaded checklist – not everyone will need a face mask or be able to find a use for a paracord. The items in your Grab Bag should be those relevant to your needs, rather than packing every conceivable item. Not having a wide necked bottle on hand to pull together a Grab Bottle it’s something that I’ll have to do tomorrow. However, I’ll update this post and provide a justification for each item included.

One of the reasons that I wanted to take the 30 Days 30 Ways Challenge was precisely to learn about other ways of engaging with people about emergency preparedness, and I’m excited for the rest of the month having been introduced to a new idea on day 3!

To finish with some shameless self promotion – don’t forget that my Would you grab your grab bag? post is one of my most viewed!

30 Days, 30 Ways: Day 2

30 Days, 30 Ways: Day 2

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Today’s 30 Days 30 Ways challenge is about identifying and connecting with your local emergency manager.

EASY – that’s me!! You can find out more about me, or you can connect with London Prepared on twitter.

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Well, as that was pretty easy I thought I’d try to put an estimate on how bit the emergency planning community is in the UK. It turns out this was quite an ambitious task!

The first thing to note is that I had no easy or quick access to any definitive information, so what follows is an estimation based on the size of the following LinkedIn groups and my personal experience.

Assuming the same is true across the country as in my own team, 50% aren’t active on LinkedIn, so let’s double the average size (1,094) to give a better estimation (3,143).

Acknowledging that emergency planning may not be the primary responsibility for some people, I’ve doubled again (6,286) and then added 10% ‘for luck’ and then rounded to the nearest thousand. That gives a final estimation of 7,000 emergency planners in the UK. Does that sound about right? I’d be interested in thoughts of others in whether this sounds about right, or how a better number could be determined.

Whilst 7,000 sounds like a sizeable number, many of those are in the private sector and although extremely knowledgable, couldn’t really be considered your local emergency planner!

The best way of finding your local emergency planner is to contact your Local Authority, or your Local Resilience Forum.

Update: Following a suggestion from @Rubonist I’ve taken a look at the number of registered users on ResilienceDirect (an online system used local resilience forums in the UK). I’m not sure I have access to the full data, but I’m about 300 shy of the number of registered users. As the system isn’t expensively used by the private sector I’m going to revise my estimate to nearer to 8,500! 

Update 2: After a question from a colleague @UKResilience – for clarity I’m defining an Emergency Planner as someone who is responsible for and actively involved in developing emergency plans in their organisation. This might not necessarily mean EP is 100% of their role, but equally, I’m not counting the people at senior levels who have a responsibility but don’t actually ‘get their hands dirty’ with the work. 

Update 3: The Emergency Planning Society (one of the leading Professional Bodies for resilience practitioners in the UK) have released their Annual Report 2013-14. In this document the below breakdown of membership is provided. It’s interesting to see that there has been a considerable reduction in the number of members compared to the previous year, but also that there are fewer members compared to the EPS LinkedIn group! EPS 2014

30 Days, 30 Ways: Day 1

30 Days, 30 Ways: Day 1

Reading Time: 2 minutes

The origins of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge are unclear. The details aren’t important here, other than to note that what started as an awareness raising campaign in the United States reached ‘viral’ levels in July/August 2014; even I recently joined in.

But what does any of this have to do with emergency management I hear you ask?

Well, September is national preparedness month in America. It’s an event that I’ve been keeping an eye on for the last four years but has yet to make the transition across to the UK in the same was as the Ice Bucket Challenge.

With a relatively benign risk environment and high degree of political reticence I can’t imagine the same type of event would have much traction this side of the pond. However, that doesn’t make it any less interesting to follow the activity of stateside emergency management colleagues and consider what could be appropriated!

One of my favourite elements is the 30 Days 30 Ways preparedness game, which invites members of the public to undertake 30 relatively simple readiness tasks, one for each day of the month. This year, rather than simply being a voyeur, I’ll be joining in the game and using my blog to capture how I get on!

Today’s task is right up my street…

What do you think is the best “pop culture” reference to disasters in our current culture?

My answer would have to be Zombies. In true zombie style, the undead have popped all over the place

Pervasive across all media, if I had to choose one specific thing it would be AMC’s The Walking Dead. I still have some episodes of Season 4 to watch, but I’m hooked.

To watch from the perspective of an Emergency Manager is perhaps unique. Is it just me that sees the examples of information vacuum, constantly evolving strategy, improvised response and differences mismatch between capacity and capability? These are elements can be common in ‘real’ emergencies and therefore to see them portrayed in such an engaging television series is interesting.

The thing I think The Walking Dead teaches us the most – that people actually have a greater capacity for resilience than we often give them credit for. That Rick and the gang have survived four seasons in the face of zombies, resource constraints and other survivors is a reflection of their resilience.